PHOTOGRAPHY SHARYN CAIRNS (PARAMOUNT HOUSE HOTEL), WILL HORNER (PARAMOUNT COFFEE PROJECT AND GOLDEN AGE CINEMA AND BAR) & TOM ROSS (EXTERIOR)W
hat makes a great destination?
Is it the food? The architecture
and design? The entertainment
options?Ask Russell Beard,
who owns a handful of cafés
in Australia and beyond,
and he’ll say it’s a mix of all of those elements, plus
something less tangible: a sense of connection to
the people who live there and the community they’ve
developed. “You’ve got to mix with them,” he says.
“It’s a great way to feel included.”
“Community” is a word that Beard and his business
partner Mark Dundon use frequently in their projects,
which include Sydney cafés Reuben Hills, Paramount
Coffee Project and Bondi Hall, as well as Seven Seeds
in Melbourne and PCP in Los Angeles. And it’s the
concept at the core of their latest venture, Paramount
House Hotel, conveniently positioned in Surry Hills,
on the southern fringe of Sydney’s CBD. The hotel
was conceived as a portal to the thriving inner-city
neighbourhood, and was designed to give guests
“a sense of place”, says Beard, “something that doesn’t
feel generic and offers a real slice of the area”.
The making of a destination started 11 years
ago, when Sydney property investor Ping Jin Ng
bought Paramount House, the former Australian
HQ of Paramount Picture Studios, and slowly filled
the 1940s building with a hand-picked collection of
like-minded tenants. Beard and Dundon’s Paramount164 GOURMET TRAVELLER